Steve’s Weblog

Up until recently, I followed Senator John Cornyn on Facebook, but his obsession with Attorny General Holder got to be a little much, and as his constituent, I expressed my opinion there. Well, it seems that Senator Cornyn can’t take the heat. I’ve had my Facebook account banned from posting comments on his page, and also had my Twitter account blocked by the Senator’s Twitter account.

The Senator questioned the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s change in deportation policy, and seemed to be saying it was the responsibility of Congress:

Art 1, sec. 8 US Const: Congress shall have the power to “establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization… .”

But the Senator appears far too obsessed and busy pursuing his witch-hunt against Attorney General Holder to spend any time on the Dream Act (or any other worthwhile legislation). He’s posted (some might call it spamming) over 25 links to articles this week calling for the resignation of Attorney General Holder on his Facebook page. Meanwhile, it appears that the charges Cornyn has leveled against Attorney General Holder are unfounded: Five Things To Know About The Republican Witchhunt Against Attorney General Holder.

This comment from Facebook sums it up pretty well:

Lori Ratcliff: I LOVE our president and am so happy that he is doing the right thing in spite of all the corporate shills in the Republican party. I am SO SICK of hearing all the hatred and racism spewing from the mouths (and computers) of Republicans. Never forget, Mr. Cornyn, that it is your job to represent ALL of us, not just your personal supporters. The president is doing the right thing in spite of the congress and I say, it’s about damn time.

From the Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event:

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Let’s hope your parents don’t keep you home.

I’m kind of amazed at all the chatter about keeping the kids at home for Obama’s televised speech to all school children next week. Where was the feigned outrage when George W Bush or Ronald Reagan spoke to school kids? What’s driving the outrage anyway, could it be that maybe they’re afraid that their children might actually learn something from Obama’s talk that makes them as parents appear just a little less educated themselves?

Check out this cartoon: http://community.thetimes-tribune.com/blogs/johncole/archive/2009/09/05/school-daze.aspx with a satirical look at why it’s so important to get a good education.

Hmm, this is a change, there’s actually seems to be something worth surfing over to whitehouse.gov for.

From now until the end of the month, every day is Election Day in Texas.

Early voting is fast, easy, and it could make the difference in this state. Show your friends and family that you’ve made up your mind and you’re ready for change now.

Take the first step today. Find your Early Vote location.

Early voting is simple, safe, and convenient.

Obama ’08 – Vote For Hope from MC Yogi on Vimeo.

h/t Julia

It struck me last night that both Rudy Guliani and Sarah Palin mocked “community organizers” as though that was a bad thing, with no responsibility attached. Yet, as the Obama campaign responded, “Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.”. It seems that maybe the reason they’re mocking it is because it’s a response to their own inadequacies. They’re out of touch, and their policies are clearly, like their leader, failures.

Anyway, it seems that the Republican mocking of “community organizers” is their code for pulling the race card against Obama. The image it’s supposed to invoke is one of the scary, angry black man yelling about being repressed, etc. The bad news for them is that Obama has taken what he learned as a local community organizer, and applied it at the national level to his campaign. He’s used that model quite effectively to build a strong grass roots organization, and the tools to energize and activate them. How much have you donated to his campaign? The grass roots nature of this strategy flys well below the radar of the traditional media reporting and polling, but is clearly responsible for his success in the caucus states where getting activists out to vote (or vote twice as in Texas) was key to winning in those races.

Seems that Obama has reached out to the GLBT blogging community and is hosting several of the major bloggers who are cross posting to this new site. Check it out here.

From AP:

AP tally: Obama clinches Democratic nomination

By DAVID ESPO and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers 9 minutes ago

WASHINGTON – Barack Obama clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signaled an interest in joining the ticket as his running mate.

Obama arranged a victory celebration in St. Paul, Minn., at the site of this summer’s Republican National Convention — an in-your-face gesture to Sen. John McCain, who will be his opponent in the race to become the nation’s 44th president.

The 46-year-old Obama outlasted Clinton in a historic campaign that sparked record turnouts in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.

In a campaign of surprises, Clinton’s comments about joining the ticket rated high.

According to one participant in an afternoon conference call among Clinton and members of the New York congressional delegation, Rep. Nydia Velazquez said she believed the best way for Obama to win over Hispanics and members of other key voting blocs would be to take the former first lady as his running mate.

“I am open to it,” Clinton replied, if it would help the party’s prospects in November, said the participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was a private matter.

My dad sent me a reprint of this post over at thestironline.com, which basically trashes Barack Obama for several reasons, not the least of which is the claim that he’s a big government liberal.

That reminded me of a post I read over at Firedoglake earlier this year, “It’s Not Your Money“.

It’s Not Your Money
By: Ian Welsh Saturday February 9, 2008 4:00 pm

You also didn’t earn most of it.

It seems like every time I discuss taxation, some libertarian will waltz in and say “it’s my money and I don’t see why the government should be able to take it.”

So let’s run through why, no, it isn’t your money.

Read on…

Clinton emphatically says Obama can win White House

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer 6 minutes ago

PHILADELPHIA – Hillary Rodham Clinton said emphatically Wednesday night that Barack Obama can win the White House this fall, undercutting her efforts to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination by suggesting he would lead the party to defeat.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said when pressed about Obama’s electability during a campaign debate six days before the Pennsylvania primary.

Yahoo!